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A COAST WITH A BUSY HISTORY

By CHRISTINE S. COZZENS;

Published: August 20, 1995

BOUND to Britain by centuries of commerce and conflict, the southeastern coast of Ireland affords even casual visitors perspective on what happens when cultures clash and merge. This very accessible corner of the country -- only a few hours' drive from Dublin and connected to England and France by ferry at Rosslare Harbor -- is rich with the history of invasion and rebellion, and offers Ireland's mildest weather along with a great variety of sandy beaches, villages, castles and ancient walled towns whose layers reveal the succession of power.

Geologists refer to this region as the Leinster Ridge because of the swatch of granite mountains, the Wicklow and Blackstairs ranges, that sets off the coastal towns. Celtic chieftains, Christian monks and generations of English nobility built their castles, abbeys, or great houses along the rivers -- the Slaney, Barrow, Suir and Blackwater -- that flow from those heights out to the sea. The rivers and magnificent natural harbors at Wexford, Waterford and Youghal brought trade and cultural exchange during peacetime but made the lowlands vulnerable to invasion.

Determined to get to know this region we had bypassed so often in our rush to the west, my husband, Ron, and I spent a week here in January. Driving from Dublin Airport to Wexford, we descended from the misty Vale of Avoca in the Wicklow Mountains into the sunny Slaney valley. Our first stop was Wexford, built around a quay that has known sea traffic for more than 2,000 years. The silting up of Wexford's harbor in the 19th century forced the larger ships to dock at Rosslare, but today the bustling capital of County Wexford retains the atmosphere of a busy port, and plans to rebuild the harbor for pleasure boating are under way. (Currently only small boats can use it.)

Remnants of the Viking and Norman periods blend gracefully into the 18th- and 19th-century buildings at the city's core. For help with pulling away Wexford's historical layers, I took advantage of the service offered by the local tourist board, which arranges guided walking tours. The next day Ron and I met Seamus Malloy, president of the Wexford Historical Society, at Westgate Heritage Center, in a 13th-century watch tower at the northern end of town. As we prowled around the tower and the ruins of nearby Selskar Abbey, where Henry II spent six weeks atoning for his part in the murder of Thomas a Becket, Mr. Malloy wove together unromanticized history and contemporary concerns, like the exigencies of preserving Wexford's monuments from the ravages of weather, pollution and development.

Once a busy Viking trading center, Mr. Malloy explained, Wexford, like other southeastern towns, remained a key port for the Normans and later for Cromwell's forces. Bits of the city's ancient wall near Westgate show holes from the timber scaffolding the Normans used to fortify the structure the Vikings had abandoned.

THROUGH the centuries, Wexford's city plan remained unchanged. Main Street and High Street, the principal shopping districts, follow the meandering path south from what was once the Celtic village to the Vikings' settlement. At Cornmarket, a triangular plaza now busy with traffic, the two cultures met to trade.

Just around the corner, the butchers' guild sponsored semiannual bull-baiting at the Bull Ring during the 17th and 18th centuries until this grisly custom was finally banned. A statue of a pikeman commemorating the failed 1798 rebellion against English rule stands in the Bull Ring, which was also a gathering place for political rallies.

From Main Street, several narrow passages like Keyser's Lane -- an original Viking passageway -- burrow through buildings and spill out onto Crescent Quay. At the harbor's edge, a statue of Commodore John Barry, the Wexford man who was a founder of the United States Navy, gazes out to sea. John F. Kennedy, another naval officer descended from a Wexford family, presided at the annual celebration of Barry's accomplishments on June 1, 1963.

At the other side of a bridge visible from the quay, the Slaney estuary forms the broad wetlands known as the Slobs, a wildlife preserve, where the world's largest colony of Greenland white-fronted geese spends the winter. At nearby Ferrycarraig, the Irish National Heritage Park, is a living museum of 7,000 years of domestic history -- from recreated stone-age dwellings to an early Christian monastery, Viking longboats and a Norman castle.

Several pleasant routes link Wexford to its rival port, Waterford, but we wanted to see the coast, so we drove south and west, where grassy, wedge-shaped hills slope gently toward the sea interrupted by the silhouettes of steeples and of the fortified towers that show Wexford's strategic importance during Norman times. Around one such 15th-century tower the splendid Gothic Revival turrets and battlements of Johnstown Castle are set amid ornamental lakes and formal gardens.

About 20 minutes' drive south of Johnstown Castle, Kilmore Quay is one of the southeast's prettiest seaside towns, with two-story thatched cottages and a maritime museum aboard the retired lightship Guillemot. We followed back roads out to the Norman lighthouse at Hook Head. Built in 1172 and first operated by monks, the three-chambered structure is 100 feet high. Hook Head and Crooke, a village on the west bank, both overlook Waterford Harbor. Cromwell vowed in 1643 that his armies would conquer the city "by Hook or by Crooke" -- and was as good as his word. His armies were garrisoned in the village of Passage East; the car ferry from Ballyhack lands there now, saving visitors from Wexford a 50-mile drive around the harbor.